Kobe Bryant spoke to reporters during an appearance in China this past weekend, assuring them that his surgically repaired Achilles tendon is healing much faster than it was expected to. He did this in a very Kobe Bryant kind of way.

“We don’t know,” Bryant told the gathered reporters. “That’s the thing about this injury is that the surgical procedure was different, how we did it, was different. Because of that the recovery has been different, the timetable has been different, the normal timetable for recovering from an Achilles, we’ve shattered that. Three-and-a-half months, I can already walk just fine, I am lifting weight just fine. So we don’t know what that timetable is going to be, this is new territory for us all.”

Unfortunately, Bryant doesn't go on to explain exactly what made his particular surgery so different and revolutionary, but his confidence falls in line with Lakers vice president Jim Buss's earlier prediction that Bryant would be ready to play by the preseason. A torn Achilles normally takes 9-12 months to recover from, but a return by preseason would see Bryant's recovery clock in at about six months.

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Also, you have to love Bryant using "we" when talking about how his surgery went down. He makes it sound like he wasn't under anesthesia at all, but was instead barking commands and diagramming the surgery for the doctors on a whiteboard. Actually, that's probably exactly how the whole thing went down.